By taking an intersectional and emic view to studying a group of African American girls in a third-grade class, we attempted to capture the complexity of mathematics learning for these girls. Traditionally, children's social networks in school are framed as external to mathematics content learning. Our preliminary analyses of student interviews and classroom interactions revealed that social networks were instrumental in shaping learning opportunities and the development of academic, mathematical, and racial identities of girls in this class. Informed by our findings, we present our view of studying African American girls in learning contexts.